White Eldrazi

Yeah, my first thought was that Ballista was an automatic 4-of, but I'm currently testing out Copter instead since you (@wappla) speaks so fondly of it. I also think that Palace Jailer is very interesting and perhaps better than Ballista. It's a draw engine and it's removal (combos very well with Displacer since the exiled creature will stay exiled until your opponent becomes the monarch).

I don't play TKS either, and I haven't missed it once since I dismissed it.

I played 3 matches yesterday against @Stormanimagus on cockatrice (white eldrazi vs hatebears). Thalia was key is like 8 games out of 9. Thalia + mana available was ALWAYS a win. The double loss of tempo is absolutely insane.

I was playing 3 thalia v1 and 3 thalia v2 which seemed correct to me. this needs way more tests to figure out if the 4/4 "split" is better or not
However, 4/4 might be right when playing 3 or 4 copter to get ride of extra copies easily
I like SCopter on the paper but having a turn where i do not affect the board is not something i like in this deck.

4 eldrazi temple is mandatory as you need gas to activate displacers

TKS has an impact on both hand & board...
Playing 0 TKS and 4 Smashers is..... weird.

I played 3 matches yesterday against @Stormanimagus on cockatrice (white eldrazi vs hatebears). Thalia was key is like 8 games out of 9. Thalia + mana available was ALWAYS a win. The double loss of tempo is absolutely insane.

I was playing 3 thalia v1 and 3 thalia v2 which seemed correct to me. this needs way more tests to figure out if the 4/4 "split" is better or not
However, 4/4 might be right when playing 3 or 4 copter to get ride of extra copies easily
I like SCopter on the paper but having a turn where i do not affect the board is not something i like in this deck.

4 eldrazi temple is mandatory as you need gas to activate displacers

TKS has an impact on both hand & board...
Playing 0 TKS and 4 Smashers is..... weird.

How bad is our MUD match up?

Thalia 2.0 is definitely key in the aggro matchups. Eldrazi vs Eldrazi often comes down to whoever gets down a Thalia 2.0 first. And then an active Displacer.

I could be convinced that 3 Thalia 2.0 is fine, but I wouldn't go below 4 Thalia 1.0, and I do think that 4 Thalia 2.0 is correct as well.

I don't agree with Eldrazi Temple (especially if you're not playing TKS). I'd rather have acces to additional white mana, though I guess if you are playing TKS, some number of Eldrazi Temple is correct.

Don't forget that this thread has seen a lot of VERY different lists pasted, and a lot of people talking about very different matchups and metagames. (Hell, when I posted this thread originally, Walking Ballista and Paradoxical Outcome weren't printed yet).

I think it's pretty obvious that Thalia 2.0 is is good in some situations:

you're in a tempo-centric match/board state where being one turn ahead on attackers gives you the win.

you're in a situation where first strike makes combat dangerous for the opponent (for me this has been particularly notable with equipment, or in a team-up with Thalia 1.0 against Reality Smashers)

you're in a situation where the "comes into play tapped" ability on Thalia does more than usual (e.g. an opponent with a combo that gets shut off by it, like Saheeli+Sun Titan, or Dragon Combo [lulz])

But it also seems pretty obvious that Thalia 2.0 is bad in some situations:

you're in a game state where tempo doesn't matter, or you're far enough behind on tempo that Thalia is worse than a catch-up spell (note that this can be the the case even if the matchup is tempo-centric)

your opponent is on a deck that's low on cards that get hit by Thalia (e.g. Paradoxical Outcome which has no creatures and gets most of its mana through artifacts)

Of course, if people have a different read on the metagame, they think those situations are more or less important, more or less common. If you think that Workshops is already a very good matchup, you're going to place less importance on how good or bad Thalia is against Workshops, even if there's a lot of shops in your meta.

I think it's useful, in threads like these, to be explicit about the assumptions you're making to come to your conclusion - instead of jumping ahead to "Thalia is definitely a 4-of" ... by getting a handle on WHEN a card is good, and separately, what sort of cards can be run to induce those game states to happen, people can adapt their list to handle the metagame they expect, and solve the problems they have.

@CwaM legend glut is brutal in a deck with zero deck manipulation. things compound themselves during mulligans. If you randomly never encounter it then you'll pick up some %, if you randomly end up with awkward 2.0,2.0,1.0,1.0,lnd, land mulligans then you will not win.

@CwaM Copter has it's own issues, Null Rod, needing a dude in a deck with mostly impact dudes (sans maybe a stranded Revoker). But I haven't played copter in Vintage so I'm talking out of my ass. I do know if I felt like 75% of the shop players in my field were packing Ballista I'd be maining Rod or Stony. I think as with every deck design decision in a non-cantrip / draw engine deck you just have to accept some variance. I draw so poorly I rarely even play 4 x Thalia's, this is likely wrong by any measure. However you are really looking at WARP, what are you replacing the excess legend with? The math on a having 2+ of a 4 of in your top 10 cards is about 13%. But it's more complex, given your first one may get countered or removed in short order.

Both my loses were to Mentor players who ended up in the Top 8, and as a relatively inexperienced Vintage player, I definitely felt outclassed in those two matches. On the day i was 3-2 against Mentor, 1-0 against each Oath and Dredge.

The list is near identical to the one I last ran to 5-0 at a local event, with the only change being to the SB, -1 Rest in Peace for +1 Containment Priest. In the future, I'm not sold on the Missteps in the board. They never felt like they were doing enough.

I managed to dodge Shops all day, which certainly helped, though the sideboard plan of -9 Thorn effects, +2 Fragmentize, +3 Swords to Plowshares, +2 Kataki, +2 Stony Silence has felt good in the past. Game 1 has felt very difficult though.

Overall, though, the deck felt very strong, and I'll likely be sticking to this more stock list going forward.

Don't get me wrong, Revoker is a great card, but it basically has to auto name Dack Fayden against blue, and I'm fine with Dack with this current list because they can steal:
Chalice of the Void, which does nothing
Thorn of Amethyst which does nothing
Artifact Mana, which could be alittle annoying but bearable
Walking Ballista, which basically does nothing because we can shoot the Dack and them to ensure they don't get anything from the activation.

If you play Revoker and don't name Dack, then they steal it and you gave them a blocker, which is no Bueno imo.

Blind naming revoker is a desperation move imo. If you didn't play Walking Ballista in the deck I would blind name that. Otherwise it might be better to name Jace, Vryn's Prodigy against blue. It is more commonly played. It can slip into play under Thorns easier.

I have never played White Eldrazi without Revokers. This is something I will have to try out. Seeing Ancient Tomb and Revoker as my only turn 1 play on the play is almost always a mulligan.

I'm gonna try my hand at white eldrazi again. I played it before getting into shops and I enjoyed it. Where is the current mindset in regards to eldrazi temple and the differences between disenchant and fragmentize.

As far as I could test this deck, I'm always disappointed when not playing Thought-Knot Seer.
It both disrupts and smashes. Sure it does not trample well so goblin pyromancer is quite an issue but you cannot have answer to everything.

I'm gonna try my hand at white eldrazi again. I played it before getting into shops and I enjoyed it. Where is the current mindset in regards to eldrazi temple and the differences between disenchant and fragmentize.

I don't believe you can rely on 4-5 Plains and 1-2 Karakas (backed up by Pearl/Lotus) to reliably cast non-creature white spells. But I think I'm in the minority opinion. I prefer 3 Eldrazi Temple.

I personally prefer no temples, a bit more white and dropping TKS. Whatever build you go for, you have to have something to do with late game mana, an answer to moat (flyers, copter, ballista, Elspeth) and a ton of answers to shops.

Only played a couple of tournies since ballista was released, currently on one match loss due to tiredness - auto copied a chain when I already had an answer on the board. Can't beat a god draw from PO storm when they're on the play, but you can take game one off dredge - depends on your local meta.